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The Sky In A Helmet


Translated by Stephen Watts and Marga Burgui-Artajo


I was bewildered before the bullet -
both of us together
there beneath the flattened sky,
dreading death
I gathered my life's pieces into my rucksack ....
and portioned it out :
for my son ...
for my library ...
for the trenches
(for childhood, an orphaning ...
and for my woman, poetry
and poverty ...
for the war, this chronic bleeding ....
and for memory .... just ashes)
Now what is left to you of the life
you used to carry between bunker and hope
always fearing this shrapnel of time.
The sergeant said :
This is death &
it doesn't deal in addition, subtraction
so choose a hole the size of your desire
this is the time for holes & for heads ...
Or ...
run for it
right now ...
from such impossible death
( - for there's no way out ...

the earth is narrower than we thought
.... narrower than that miser's palm ...
and who'll take the orphan to safety
where the horizon goes dark ...
and the face of morning blacks out).
...........................
No worries
I piled together what was left of me
and charged ahead ....
- but where to .... ?!
Between you & death there's an invisible muzzle
and the question two small children asked :
- "Daddy, when are you coming back .. ?"
I turned round ...
The sergeant yelled : This is your homeland now ...
my heart shuddered, white with weakness
I choked with tears of humiliation :
- O sky of Iraq ...
is there air to breathe
I looked everywhere ...
Iraq's sky was punctured with shrapnel
and it was .........
............
I tripped on a rock
saw my burst boot laughing at me ...
( - No worries ...
let the fat clerks who sit behind their desks write
about - the fat of the land)
..............................
In a room, twenty years ago
She used - fearfully - to mend my worn trousers
Washing off her shame with her tears

..............................
- Father, where is my pocket money ... ?!
my friends have gone to school already ...
...............................
(My friends have gone to their bullets
such destinies are deaf ...)
My friends ...
my friends ...
my fri ...
I fell ...
and my homeland gathered me in ...
and we raced to the barricade
challenging death together
Which of us will protect -
O my homeland -
his own head ... ?
We have just one helmet ...
just one.

 

Baghdad 1986

 


 
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